TM 18-40 Death Midwifery Journeying Beyond from Home

Their Story Matters with Sara Troy and her guest Pashta Marymoon, on air from October 2nd

Death Midwifery

CINDEA‘s definition of Death Midwifery

In the simplest sense, a modern-day death midwife is a facilitator, who offers a continuum of direct and integrated guidance and support to the death journeyer and their family throughout a personalized and participatory pan-death process.Although traditionally this role was considered women’s work, today men also serve as death midwives (as they also do as birth midwives).The CINDEA definition seeks to honour and parallel the role of a birth midwife — while acknowledging that the comparable aspects of a death midwife’s role to the medical side of a birth midwife’s responsibilities are presently offered by palliative care nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, etc.

JOIN SARA AND PASHTA AS WE DISCUSS OUR OPTIONS IN CROSSING OVER.

VIDEO

Have you ever had a friend or relative die, and wished you could have kept them at home for a day or two, to take care of the body yourself and say your farewells without pressure? In fact, you can.

Caring for your deceased loved one at home is simpler than it may seem, but certain tasks(including the filing of paperwork) do need to be done at specific times. Embalming is usually not necessary, and in most places there is no legal requirement to make use of a funeral home.

CINDEA is a Canadian-based organization, which respects the wisdom of ancient death traditions and encourages the renewal of older death practices that are appropriate to our modern-day life. In the past, communities cared for their own dying folk; and creatively adapted, that approach to death is still an option available to us. CINDEA ‘s perspective is one of a wide range of initiatives that are drawing our culture into a deeper relationship with nature and the cycles of life and death — the modern version of “a good death” for all involved in it.

We are committed to the unfolding development of the wholistic pan-death movement, including the roles and practices of alternative deathcare. Clarification of these roles, and what they are called, is in its infancy — therefore, we have offered definitions of several alternative deathcare roles, and we support the networking of various kinds of end-of-life practitioners. Our site also provides comprehensive dying and death resources — some conventional, though mostly focused on those that are less well-known.

Pashta MaryMoon is a mother and grandmother, living in Victoria, B.C. Canada. She spent her youth as a social activist and non-violence trainer, and teaching music in elementary schools. Later, she obtained a Honours degree in World Religions (Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), followed by a lay seminary degree (Unity Institute Spiritual Education and Enrichment in Missouri) — as well as training in sexual abuse and general counselling, and working in a Sexual Abuse centre as a volunteer counsellor (where she also dealt with incest and attempted murder cases). With a life-long special interest in the dying process, she visited Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s Shanti Nilaya center in the late 1970s; and as part of her university degree, wrote several essays on the effect of modern death practices on our attitudes towards life.